Assistant Professorship in Computational Archaeology, Aarhus University

The Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, School of Culture and Society, invites applications for a three-year position as assistant professor in Computational Archaeology. The position will commence on March 1st, 2024 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The assistant professorship is a 50% FTE, that involves research and teaching at the BA and MA level and includes an obligatory course in university teaching for assistant professors.

Place of employment: Aarhus University, Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, School of Culture and Society, Moesgaard Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark.

In its pursuit of academic excellence, The Faculty of Arts is committed to creating an inclusive working environment and therefore encourages all qualified candidates to apply, regardless of personal background, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, ethnicity etc.

The position

The position will be associated with the CLIOARCH project (

https://cas.au.dk/en/erc-clioarch

) funded by the European Research Council, the Materials, Culture and Heritage research programme at the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, and is a combined teaching and research position.

The position is offered with a view to attracting talented applicants with an excellent and well-documented track record in innovative and internationally recognised research in computational archaeology, behavioural ecology, cultural evolution, and a specialisation in distribution modelling as applied to archaeological data.

Research

The successful applicant will be expected to contribute to core activities at the School of Culture and Society and Aarhus University in general and to strengthen the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies’ research activities and output in particular. They will be expected to take an interest in interdisciplinary research collaboration within the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies and Material, Culture and Heritage research programme, the School of Culture and Society, the Faculty of Arts, and beyond.

In particular, the successful applicant will be expected to contribute to the lively research environment around the CLIOARCH project. Within CLIOARCH, research centers on computational approaches to Final Palaeolithic/early Mesolithic archaeology and climate change. The project seeks to quantify and qualify human responses to rapidly changing environments. Set within a Cultural Evolution framework, CLIOARCH is a multidisciplinary collaboratory utilizing cutting-edge computational techniques to understand patterns and process of human adaptation. The successful applicant will be expected to develop and expand upon the existing CLIOARCH project portfolio and to work within the existing theoretical and methodological framework. The successful applicant is expected to include aspects of the archaeological record such as the artefactual material, zooarchaeological material, and other proxies of the environment (i.e., paleoclimate data). From this, the successful applicant will also be expected to develop new research projects with internal and external partners, and to raise external research funding. Additionally, as a core member of this project, the successful applicant will be expected to organise and/or participate in project meetings, to advise junior colleagues, and to actively engage in collaboration within and beyond the research group.

The applicant’s research credentials and publication record within the field will be assessed not just on existing publications and other research contributions but also on research potential.

Past research achievements will be assessed based on the active research time of the applicant in question. We therefore ask applicants to specify any career breaks they have had (for instance due to maternity/paternity leave) in order to gauge their research productivity.

Education

The successful applicant will be required to teach and supervise in prehistoric and ecological/evolutionary archaeology as well as computational archaeology at BA and MA levels of the department’s degree programmes and will be expected to have teaching experience at university level. Specifically, the successful applicant is expected to lead teaching in quantitative methods applied to archaeological data, including archaeological data organization, analysis, and presentation, as well as thematic modules at MA level.

We emphasise the importance of maintaining a dedicated and respectful relationship between staff and students, so applicants should be able to demonstrate and exemplify their commitment to participatory teaching initiatives and student involvement as part of their teaching portfolio.

Knowledge exchange

It is expected that the successful applicant will engage in knowledge exchange as described in the strategy for the Faculty of Arts

https://arts.au.dk/om-arts/strategi-arts-2020-2025/

, for instance research cooperation with private companies, government consultancy, cooperation with civil society partners or the public dissemination of knowledge. Applicants should document any prior experience within the field of knowledge exchange.

Qualifications

Applicants must hold a PhD or equivalent qualifications in anthropology/archaeology or a related discipline. They must also be able to document the following:

• Experience of distribution modelling, specifically spatiotemporal distribution models
• An interest in human palaeoecology and human-animal interactions
• Knowledge of climate models, model downscaling, and existing paleoclimate data
• Expertise in human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution
• An internationally oriented research profile documented through relevant academic publications, and possibly other research contributions, at the international level
• Experience of university-level teaching and a commitment to teaching development and the supervision of student projects
• Experience of or interest in active participation in international research collaboration
• Experience of or interest in obtaining exteral research funding Experience teaching quantitative methods using R or equivalent statistical software including data organization, analysis, and visualization.

Only submitted publications (but no more than five examples)

 

will be assessed; a list of publications is not sufficient. As a result, applications without submitted publications will not be assessed.

References or recommendations should not be included with the application. Applicants who are selected for a job interview may be asked to provide professional references.

Language and further information

Applicants must be able to teach and supervise in English at university level.

If the successful applicant is not fluent in Danish, s/he will be expected to acquire the language within a period of approximately two years.

In order to maintain and develop the department’s research environment, the person appointed is expected to be present at the department on a basis agreed upon with the immediate position manager.

Applications must be uploaded in English.

For further information about the content of the position, please contact Head of Department [email protected] .

For further information about the application, please contact HR supporter Marianne Birn [email protected]

The work environment

At the Department of Archaeology and its associated research programme known as Materials, Culture and Heritage (MCH), we are concerned with people and the environment and culture and society from the earliest to modern times, with a focus on studies of material culture. On the basis of fieldwork and library and laboratory studies – including methods from anthropology, history and a variety of natural scientific approaches – the programme investigates and challenges our understanding of past societies seen in a deep historical perspective.

The MCH research programme at Aarhus University has an international profile and strong research networks. A dynamic research environment provides the framework for large research projects, international conferences and a variety of visiting researchers. The environment is versatile and cross-disciplinary, and the academic staff’s research competences span topics ranging from war and power, mobility and globalisation, family and individual, religion and rituals, landscape and settlement, palaeo-demography and evolution, trade and networks, technology and knowledge exchange to (in particular) quantitative analysis methods, field methodology and digital representation.

For a more detailed description, please visit https://cas.au.dk/en/about-the-school/departments/archaeology-and-heritage-studies
and https://cas.au.dk/en/about-the-school/departments/archaeology-and-heritage-studies/materials-culture-and-heritage

The School of Culture and Society

At the School of Culture and Society, the object of research and teaching is the interplay between culture and society in time and space:

• From the traditional disciplines of the humanities and theology to applied social research
• From Antiquity to the issues facing contemporary societies
• From local questions to global challenges

The school’s ambition is to produce compelling research with an international resonance as well as to offer teaching and talent development of the highest quality. The school has a broad cooperative interface with society as a whole, both in Denmark and abroad, and contributes to social innovation, research communication and further and continuing education.

For further information about the school, please see http://cas.au.dk/en/ .

International applicants

International applicants are encouraged to read about the

attractive working conditions

and other benefits of working at Aarhus University and in Denmark, including healthcare, paid holidays and, if relevant, maternity/paternity leave, childcare and schooling. Aarhus University offers a wide variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including a

relocation service

and an

AU Expat Partner Programme

. You can also find information about the

taxation aspects of international researchers’ employment by AU

.